Chapter 19: May the 24th

Hail ye, mummers and 'mums,

Where last we saw our valiant vagabonds, the Guardians had begun their ascent of the Argynvostholt towers. On the third floor of the keep, our heroes found two quarreling specters, knights of the Order of the Silver Dragon, Sir Godfrey Gwilym and Sir Vladimir Horngaard. The two devoted soldiers were fighting over the fate of their Order, should the Guardians use Argynvost's skull to free the spirits from their eternal torment or tether them to the land so that they might fight the Dreadlord in one final act of vengeance. Sir Godfrey begged the Guardians to let the knights of the Order rest and bade them not to fall into Strahd's sadistic trap of violence, while Sir Vladimir encouraged the Guardians to grant the knights of the Order another chance to right the wrongs of this world and destroy the Devil von Zarowich.

Atop the lighthouse tower of Argynvostholt, the Guardians placed the dragon's skull in the seat and turned the silvery light outward, to the land and freed the revenants to wander and fight the Legion of Dread. Sir Vladimir offered his thanks to the Guardians and provided them with a hollowed dragon horn, promising to muster his men at its sound.

And so, our Guardians ventured out to the darkest place in all of Barovia, the summit of Mount Ghakis, at the end of the Tsolenka Pass, and across the Green Fire Door; the Amber Temple. At the base of the Tsolenka Pass, the Guardians met up with Warren's new werewolf pack, Ezmerelda d'Avenir, and the elderly Kasimir Velikov. Kasimir had promised that he would see the Guardians through the Green Fire Door with a special Dusk-Elf ritual, while in exchange the Guardians would seal the Amber Temple and put an end to the Dark Powers using the spirit of Kasimir's own sister to torment him in his dreams. However, the spirit of Patrina Velikovna has been visiting our Guardians herself, and has accused her brother of having been fooled by his own fear and dread and has shared that simply sealing the Amber Temple would only play into Strahd's hand, destroying it instead would provide for true liberation.

After climbing up to the top to Tsolenka Pass, just before the Raven River bridge, the Guardians found a tall, armored figure, the terrible Dreadknight; an amalgam of the spirits of Vorthos' old crewmen, tortured and forced to hunt down their old captain. The Guardians, Ezme, and Warren's werewolves fought valiantly, while the Dreadknight baited them into a trap, surrounding them with undead and cutting off their escape with a newly risen undead Roc. Ocarin, thinking quickly, polymorphed the roc, transforming it into a whale, ending its usefulness to the Dreadknight, and Warren's werewolf pack went toe-to-toe with the undead horde. At first the Guardians had the advantage over the Dreadknight, laying waste to its thralls and bringing it to its knees. However, the Dreadknight did not relent; casting blight out over the entire battlefield and transforming all the corpses on the ground into an enormous Zombie Clot. These mythic abilities turned the tide, devastating Warren's werewolves, downing Charlemagne, and killing Vorthos outright. Hope seemed to be lost as Warren began to succumb to the Dreadknight's attacks, was this the end? In a final insult to his memory, the Dreadknight breathed new life into Vorthos' corpse, raising him as yet another zombie thrall, but this may have been been its last mistake. Somehow, in a burst of terrible, dark power, Vorthos used the connection between his corpse and the Dreadknight to consume it.

The fight had ended, the danger had passed, the Guardians had survived, but as the Guardians cast their vision onto their friend Vorthos and beheld his new form, they had no choice but to wonder... at what cost...?